During well construction procedures, it is desirable to provide a filter to prevent particulate matter from the producing formation from entering the well with the produced fluids. To filter out this particulate matter, well screens are utilized which are commonly comprised of some form of slotted pipe. The size of the particulate matter excluded from flow therethrough depends upon the size of the slots. Additionally, the number of slots in the pipe determines the flow rate of the particulate matter therethrough.
Fabrication of the well screen commonly utilizes pipe usally formed from flexible manmade materials such as polyvinyl cloride, teflon and polyethylene. In order to form the slots therein, a rotary sawblade is utilized. The pipe is placed on a conveyor platform and is passed under the blade.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,795 issued to J. R. Pool discloses an apparatus for cutting a plurality of transverse slots in a length of flexible tubing. However, in the Pool Patent, the operator of the slot-cutting apparatus must manually turn a crank in order to reposition the pipe after each cut. This manual repositioning of the pipe reduces operator efficiency and also may result in the manufacture of defective well screens due to improper alignment of the flexible pipe.
In view of the above disadvantages, there exists a need for a tube slotting apparatus that form slots in a flexible tube and provides for automatic repositioning of the flexible tube after each cut in a low cost and high efficiency manner.